Hackjob

Not too long ago, I settled on Microsoft's old Trackball Explorer as trackball nirvana. Unfortunately, it's been out of production for well over a decade and the MTE's closest modern equivalents don't really hit all the same notes... except for one. Enter the Sanwa Gravi, a trackball you've almost definitely been sleeping on.

I'm in the process of moving and anticipating being without my main setup for the next two months. Since I'm packing light in terms of hardware, I decided to go shopping for a very portable - but not totally dreadful keyboard. Needless to say, I went a little more overboard than I thought I would.

Well I did say I was going to get another Mac Pro and lo and behold - here it is. I can also say with certainty that a fair number of you reading this are rolling your eyes at the mere sight of this thing. This of course, is the infamous Mac Pro 6,1 - widely regarded as one of the worst redesigns that Apple ever released - and I'm going to tear it apart.

"Help me, or I'll steal your Greenies." Just a short plug for something I feel very strongly about - consumer protection. We live in a increasingly consumer hostile age where it feels like us consumers have less and less control over the products we buy and the services we use. Apart from the rare content creator that isn't shilling for VPNs or pube trimmers, where do you turn to when you just want straightforward information about whether or not a company - no matter how niche - is going to screw you by opting into their terms of service?

I had no real intentions on getting another buckling spring keyboard following the sublime Model F Labs Classic F104, but this was just too good of deal to pass up, and I figured it'd be fun to compare the two side by side. What I have here is an actual IBM Model F 'AT'; widely considered to be the best of the original Model F designs. Does it hold up today?

Up next is another once highly regarded Logitech trackball that has also been absent from their lineup for a little over a decade at this point: the Cordless Optical Trackman. Despite it's chops, and some promising features, you probably shouldn't buy one. Here's why.